In the world of finance, fraudsters are constantly innovating to find more sophisticated ways to steal money from individuals and institutions.


They are working in groups, often with a veneer of respectability to constantly try and find weaknesses in the way institutions share data so they can take advantage.

Over a 20-year career working in the financial sector, Diana Downing, founder and chief executive for financial technology company Transaction 360˚, based in Appleby, has realised that understanding who you are doing business with has never been more important to companies.

Now the start-up - which she began in 2019 - is working with a major financial institution to keep online fraudsters at bay.
“Fraudsters are the entrepreneurs of the criminal fraternity,” said Diana.
“They identify gaps in the market, devise compelling solutions and deploy them within days.
“They are not fettered by legislation, budgets or bureaucracy. As a result, law enforcement are left several steps behind and the fraudsters have cashed out and moved on by the time they catch up. 
"The solution to the problem lies in cleansing, understanding and analysing the data at a granular level. This reveals linkages and relationships that were previously unknown, but can make a huge difference in who businesses want to do business with.”
Before beginning T360˚ Diana held several executive positions in the banking sector and was a member of the regional management team at JP Morgan. In 2011 she also founded BankCheck by Lacuna Solutions, a data platform which enables banks, financial institutions and government agencies to carry out global payments securely and efficiently.

BankCheck was able to analyse data to verify legal entities taking part in a transaction.
T360˚ took the same concept but enhanced it by revamping the underlying technology and emphasising flexibility, speed and efficiency.
It is able to securely identify legal entities as well as data within particular transactions.
The service can spot patterns in the data to identify potential fraud, as well as to screen clients for any suspicious activity and carry out onboarding processes to securely sign them up to a financial services platform.